The Lake Dwellings of Ireland: Or ancient lacustrine habitations of Erin, commonly called crannogs.Wood-Martin, W. G. (William Gregory)
History
The Lake Dwellings of Ireland: Or ancient lacustrine habitations of Erin, commonly called crannogs.
Wood-Martin, W. G. (William Gregory)
Lake-dwellers and lake-dwellings -- Ireland
About the year 1839, upon lowering the level of the water for drainage
purposes in Roughan lake, near Dungannon, county Tyrone, an island
artificially formed was exposed to view. On it were numerous fragments
of pottery and bones, a bronze pin, a few bronze spear-heads, together
with a quern. The illustration (fig. 62) represents the top stone,
which is eighteen inches in diameter, and two and a-half inches thick;
it is formed of sandstone, the ornamentation being in high relief.
The hole or socket for reception of the handle is in one of the arms
of the cross, and goes quite through the stone.[111] Portions of a
highly decorated quernstone, restored in the accompanying illustration
(fig. 63), were found in one of the crannogs in Lough Eyes. On “Bone
Island,” in the lake of Drumgay, several fragments of quern-stones
were collected. Two of those obtained were inscribed with a cross-like
ornamentation, one of them presenting a most unusual style of crannog
geometrical decoration.
[Illustration: Fig. 64.--Quernstones with Cross and Geometrical
Decoration. About one-twelfth the real size.]
On pottery at Ballydoolough, a cross pattern was observable, as also
on a comparatively modern iron article at Cloonfinlough, and there
was in a crannog in Argyleshire a Greek cross, with crosslets as a
pattern, or ornamentation, burnt into a piece of oak.[112] The “Croix
gammée,” or Swastika, occurs on sculptured stones in Scotland, and
appears on a mosaic pavement in the recently discovered Roman villa in
the Isle of Wight. In Keller’s _Lake Dwellings of Switzerland_,[113]
a cross within a circle is represented: it was found at Auvernier,
and had seemingly been an article of personal adornment. Layard, in
his work entitled _Nineveh and Babylon_, states that he found what is
now called the Maltese and Irish cross in such connexion as led him
to identify it with the sun. In these ancient sculptures the cross
was often inserted within a circle, which, having neither beginning
nor end, was considered to be the emblem of eternity, and may be so
observed in Assyrian sculptures. Dr. Schliemann, in his _Troja_ (p.
167), gives a representation of a curious copper or bronze ring, about
the size of an ordinary napkin ring, but very heavy. It has five
compartments, each ornamented with a cross marked by openings cut
in the metal. Amongst the whorls found by Dr. Schliemann, numbers
are ornamented with [Illustration] and [Illustration]. The same sign
is found in Pompeii, and amongst the ancient heathen population of
Yucatan and Paraguay. “Later still, it was even adopted by the
Christians as a suitable variety of their own cross, and became
variously modified geometrically.” In No. 1 crannog, in the lake of
Drumgay, there was a very peculiar cross-sculptured stone, two feet
in length by three inches in thickness. It is seemingly of no great
antiquity, and was most probably intended for a tombstone to be placed
in the neighbouring cemetery of Devenish.
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